Let's start five million years ago. (You creationists can start laughing now). Dinosaurs had been extinct since year ahh... well I'm not claiming to be a certified paleontologist. Certified anthropologist neither and certified historian also neither. And yes, that's bad grammar, but does it work?

So anyway, in year now-minus-five-million, an ape gave birth to a mutant (a female, the ape dah but the jury is still out as to the gender of the mutant) having the peculiarity of being able to walk erect. As time passed, this strange event occurred again and again and yes, the jury is still out as to where this first took place. As Will Durant likes to write: "we'll never know". Will Durant say you? Look him up on Wiki. He and his wife wrote a book in eleven volumes during the mid-twentieth century entitled The Story of Civilization. Reading the first chapters prompted me to write the present article. But this article is not about Will Durant and his book nor is it about dinosaurs. But since Durant's book (at least the parts that I have read), confirms and moreover complements so nicely my personal quest to understand society that I will unashamedly use some of the concepts he puts forth.

I call them concepts because he goes beyond archeological facts: he extrapolates where classical history never goes. I guess that's why the title of the book contains the word Story rather than the word History. The extrapolation process is very soft, based on facts and stays in the realm of common sense. Nothing fantastic is injected in the work: civilization is fantastic enough and the book makes that clear without using any far-fetched ideas.

When sociologists and psychologists refer to our animal instincts and behaviors inherited from our animal ancestors, evolutionists find this to be a moot point. Now Durant calls to our attention the fact that at some point in time, man would have been in an evolutionary period that placed him/her/it closer to animal-state than human-state. Picture a being having the potential to become an Albert Einstein behaving like a monkey (oh pah-lease spare me the wise cracks). Let's follow its evolution. It doesn't even understand the concept of saving food for the next day. According to Durant it learned it by observing other species.

Now that's the point in time that I had been looking for: a place to start my own personal hypothesis building about human society. Durant says that the notion of gathering reserves for leaner days was soon followed by the notion of property. This concept of property appearing at that particular point in time provides me with a good framework to organize my thoughts regarding mankind's infancy. Durant believes that the concept of property pinpoints the start of civilization or the need for it. I think this makes sense and I might just write another article about this subject for as one Canadian statesman once put it:"I have to write to know what I think". Now that feels better. Thanks for reading me.